Publishing is Dead

OK, so when I say publishing, I mean copyright. Copyright is the only thing that keeps publishing going.

Copyright is the opposite of plagiarism, or better known as copying. A real bell curve of literary output. Both are tightly fought over in the legal system.

There have always been accusations of plagiarism in publishing. The latest example is such, but many an author, including Rowling, has been served. Does it mean anything? Ideas are a dime a dozen. How you produce those ideas is what matters.

I come from a unique perspective where I see the slop first hard. It’s not just the authors either. It’s the marketers, publicists and designers too. Just slop after slop, copy + paste everything because if the result is terrible you can just pass it off as someone else’s work. Jacket art? Just flip the character every book or two. Everyone using pink, let’s go! Uhh, can we get some TikTok ‘fluencers up in here? The only real people in publishing are the sales people, which is ironic given the ‘idea’ of the salesperson. They’re the only ones talking to booksellers. They’re the only cynics (the only Greek philosophy I agree with). Sales is where the road hits the rubber, or something.

AI changes nothing. AI, in fact, might be good for publishing. I see no difference in the output of a computer and the output of most authors. The only difference is that an LLM has less of an agenda to push. I say go for it. Why do we even bother with new books in the first place? The classics have already been written. All new publishing is huffing fumes from the exhaust pipe of Shakespeare. Let’s double down and produce endless computerized stories. There are only a few narrative styles anyway. The only people left standing are the discerning salespeople telling the bricks-and-mortar stores what’s good

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